EARLY DAYS

1546 Fracastoro suggests that invisible organisms cause disease.

1590-1608 Jansen develops first useful compound microscope.
1664 Robert Hooke - Discovery of microorganisms (fungi) coined the term cell
1676 Antoni van Leeuwenhoek - Discovery of animalcules and bacteria
1688 Redi publishes work on spontaneous generation of maggots.
1765-1776 Spallanzani attacks spontaneous generation.
1786 Muller produces first classification of bacteria.
1798 Edward Jenner - Vaccination (smallpox)
1847 Semmelweis shows that childbed fever is transmitted by physicians and introduces the use of antiseptics to prevent the disease.
GOLDEN AGE
1857-1800s Louis Pasteur - Mechanism of fermentation, defeat of spontaneous generation, rabies and other vaccines, principles of immunization
1867 Joseph Lister - Methods for preventing infections during surgeries
1876 Ferdinand J. Cohn - Discovery of endospores
Late 1800s Robert Koch - Kochs postulates, pure culture microbiology, discovery of agents of tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) and cholera
1880 Laveran discovers Plasmodium, the cause of malaria.
1881 Dr. Hesse and his wife Angelina develop the use of agar as a means to solidify media.
1884 Autoclave developed .
Gram stain developed.
1885 Escherich discovers Escherichia coli, a cause of diarrhea.
1886 Fraenkel discovers streptococcus pneumonia, a cause of pnerumonia.
1887 Petri dish developed by Richard Petri.
Late 1800s to mid-1900s Sergei Winogradsky - Chemolithotrophy and chemoautotrophy, nitrogen fixation, sulfur bacteria
1890 Von Behring prepares antitoxins for diphtheria and tetanus.
1892 Dmitri Ivanowsky provides evidence for virus causation of tobacco mosaic disease.
1894 Kitasato and Yersin discover Yersinia pestis, the cause of plague.
1896 Van Ermengem discovers Clostridium botulinum, the cause of botulism.
1897 Ross shows that malaria parasite is carried by the mosquito.
1900 Reed proves the yellow fever is transmitted by the mosquito.
1903 Wright and others discover antibodies in the blood of immunized animals.
1905 Schaudinn and Hoffmann show Treponema pallidum causes syphilis.
1906 Wassermann develops complement fixation test for syphilis.
1809 Ricketts shows that Rocky Mountain spotted fever is transmitted by ticks and caused by a microbe (Rickettsia rickettsii).
1910 Paul Ehrlich develops chemotherapeutic agent for syphilis.
1911 Rous discovers a virus that causes cancer in chickens.
MODERN ERA
Late 1800s to 1920 Martinus Beijerinck - Enrichment culture technique, discovery of many metabolic groups of bacteria, concept of a virus
1915-1917 DHerelle and Twort discover bacterial viruses.
1921 Fleming discovers lysozyme.
1928 Griffith discovers bacterial transformation.
1929 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.
1933 Ernst Ruska develops first transmission electron microscope.
1935 Stanley crystallizes the tobacco mosaic virus.
Domagk discovers sulfa drugs.
1937 Chatton divided living organisms into prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
1944 Selman A. Waksman discovers streptomycin.
1946 Lederberg and Tatum describes bacterial conjugation.
1949 Enders, Weller and Robbins grow poliovirus in human tissue cultures.
1950 Lwoff induces lysogenic bacteriophages.
1953 Phase-contrast microscope developed.
Watson and Crick propose the double helix structure for DNA.
1959 Yalow develops the radioimmunoassay technique.
1961 Jacob and Monod propose the operon model of gene regulation.
1962 First quinolone antimicrobial (nalidixic acid) synthesized
1970 Discovery of restriction endonucleases by Arber and Smith
Discovery of reverse transcriptase in retroviruses by Temin and Baltimore
1973 Ames develops a bacterial assay for the detection of mutagens.
Cohen, Boyer, Chang and Helling use plasmid vectors to clone genes in bacteria.
1975 Kohler and Milstein develop technique for the production of monoclonal antibodies.
Lyme disease discovered.
1977 Recognition of archaea as a distinct microbial group by Woese and Fox
1979 Insulin synthesized using recombinant DNA techniques
Smallpox declared officially eliminated.
1980 Development of the scanning tunneling microscope
1982 Recombinant hepatitis B vaccine developed
1982-1983 Discovery of catalytic RNA by Cech and Altman
1983-1984 The human immunodeficiency virus isolated and identified by Gallo and Montagnier
The polymerase chain reaction developed by Mullis
1986 First vaccine (hepatitis B vaccine) produced by genetic engineering approved for human use
1990 First human gene-therapy testing begun
1995 Haemophilus influenzae genome sequenced
1996 Methanococcus jannaschii genome sequenced
Yeast genome sequenced
1997 Discovery of Thiomargarita namibiensis, the largest known bacterium
Escherichia coli genome sequenced
2000 Discovery that Vibrio cholerae has two separate chromosomes
2002 Infectious poliovirus synthesis from basic chemical building blocks
Genome of malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, sequenced
Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine for 1939
Gerhard Johannes Paul Domagk (1895-1964) - Discovered sulfa drugs
Red dye-stuffprotected mice and rabbits against lethal doses of staphylococci and haemolytic streptococci.
Prontosil was a derivative of sulphanilamide.